The impact sent them careening toward the side of the road. The tires caught in the rough soil and pulled the Explorer farther off the road before Rogue could correct it. Once the two passenger tires were off the road, she could feel the car slowing despite the fact that she was pressing hard on the accelerator.
“Don’t slow down, don’t slow down!” Elizaveta was chanting frantically.
Biting her lip, Rogue jerked hard on the steering wheel, but they were caught firmly in the muddy rut carved along the side of the road by spring runoff. She heard Elizaveta’s shriek a half second before the SUV rammed them again and the front of the Explorer slid off the road toward a thick stand of pines. The other vehicle kept pace beside them on the road. Knowing there was nothing else she could do, Rogue tromped on the brake pedal, yelling instructions over her shoulder to the frightened girl.
“As soon as we come to a stop, you’re gonna have to run, honey,” she said, her voice low and urgent. “You take that phone with you and call Logan as soon as you get some distance between us.” The trees were fifteen, ten, five feet away and Rogue cringed, waiting for the impact. The shuddering jolt that ran through the frame of the Explorer when in hit the trees was softer than expected. “Now!” she yelled to Elizaveta, looking anxiously back at the road. Their pursuers were jumping out of the car as it rolled to a stop, but Rogue’s sideways trail off the road had put almost fifty yards between them.
“Come with me!” Elizaveta whimpered, throwing off her seatbelt.
“I can’t. Run, honey, and don’t look back!”
“I’ll make sure Mr. Logan finds you, Miss Rogue. Promise!” The last word was said on a sob as Elizaveta tumbled out her door and ran deeper into the woods.
Rogue spared her one last glance before climbing out to meet the six man rushing toward her. She saw one of them point in the direction Elizaveta had gone and moved to intercept the small, dark man who tried to pursue the girl. It was immediately clear that the man was skilled in hand to hand combat, but within three exchanges, Rogue had him on the ground, his knee undoubtedly shattered. Moving just far enough away from him so he couldn’t grab her legs and trip her up, Rogue engaged the next man to reach them. This one was big, bigger than Logan, and each blow that she blocked rattled through her body, making her bones and teeth ache. As each of his four remaining companions reached them, Rogue began evading their punches and kicks the best she could, her sole purpose to deter any of them from following Elizaveta. Every time a blow landed against her solid guard, the impact added to the fierce ache settling into her bones.
That’s not right, Rogue thought distantly, focused on her opponents. It shouldn’t feel like that. Logan’s healing is the one ability I never have to think about. It’s always just there. A spurt of alarm raced up her spine at the realization that even Logan’s healing wasn’t working.
The moment of distraction was all the men needed. A heavy fist landed against her left cheekbone and sent her spinning around, straight into a burly man who locked a meaty arm around her throat and began a slow squeeze. None of the other men moved any closer and Rogue was unable to kick out at them as she had planned. Trying to make the man lose his grip, she stomped on his instep, but her light canvas sneakers were no match against his thick boots. Rogue tried again, this time concentrating as hard as she could on pulling up the enhanced strength she had observed in one of the students at Xavier’s. The second blow was even weaker than the first. As a grey veil slowly crept along the edges of her vision, Rogue closed her eyes against it and abandoned any hope of using a mutation that worked via the body. With her eyes closed tight, but each of the men’s faces etched firmly in her mind, Rogue focused every bit of her remaining energy on a mental scream. Professor! The fuzziness in her mind was the same as when she had tried calling Logan, but this time Rogue hoped it was due to the lack of oxygen.
* * *
“Logan!” Todd burst through the door of the cabin. Logan was using rough sandpaper on a badly damaged window sill. The sudden interruption startled him and the paper slipped from beneath his fingers. Dry wood splinters drove deep into his palm. Wincing and gritting his teeth, Logan turned around, already pulling the larger pieces of wood, some of them two inches long and almost as thick as pencils, out of his flesh.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, having heard the panic in Todd’s voice. He could also hear the kids racing toward the cabin, Max loosing a low, sustained growl.
Without saying anything, Todd held his cell phone out to Logan. A sick feeling settled low in Logan’s stomach when he caught the sound of Elizaveta’s soft crying. Forgetting the splinters still embedded in his hand, Logan snatched the phone.
“What’s wrong, munchkin?” He couldn’t keep the growl out of his voice.
“You have to save Miss Rogue,” the girl sobbed. “We were on the road leaving town and they took her.”
His heart dropped to the floor. His mind screamed at him to find Rogue immediately, but everything else in him focused on Elizaveta. “Stay where you are. Max and I are coming to find you.”
“Max?” the girl choked out hopefully.
Logan passed the phone to the boy and ran to the closet next to the stairs. Yanking open the door, he dropped heavily to his knees and pulled a small black bag toward him. Inside was a sturdy nylon belt that held a variety of restraints and explosives and a small medical kit. Logan slung it around his waist and buckled it as he ran back toward Max. The boy was still growling, but the words he said were designed to reassure Elizaveta. Catching the boy’s shoulder in his hand, Logan turned him toward the door and they raced past Todd and the other children.
“Stay will them!” Logan barked at the other man. Outside, he continued, “Max, tell Elizaveta to hang up and hunker down. She shouldn’t make any more noise. We can find her without the phone.”
With a minor snarl of protest, Max did as Logan said and followed the older feral into the woods. Moving soundlessly between the trees, Logan rasped, “I can get us pretty close just because I’m familiar with the area. It’s gonna be up to you to pinpoint Elizaveta’s location. I have a feeling your hearing and sense of smell is better than mine.”
“It is,” Max growled. “I could hear the bastards through the phone even when Elizaveta couldn’t. They were going the wrong way looking for her.”
“Good. When we get there, your priority is the girl. And then you’re gonna point me in the right direction, got it?”
“Yeah. You gonna kill ‘em?”
“Yeah.”
Despite covering ground at a rapid rate, neither of them was winded. After a moment, Max asked, “And if Miss Rogue isn’t with them?” There was the barest trace of a scared teenager in his voice.
“Then one of the unlucky bastards lives long enough to tell me what I need to know.” The grim determination in Logan’s voice sent a chill down Max’s spine.
* * *
“They won’t find me, they won’t find me,” Elizaveta murmured, rocking slightly beneath a low hanging pine branch. Her eyes were wide open and staring, but she wasn’t seeing the pine needles in front of her or the rich, loamy earth beneath the tree. She saw the futures of each of the four men pursuing her branching out into almost infinite possibilities. Vaguely, the image seeming like a shadowy reflection in water, she saw the remaining two men loading Rogue into a second vehicle and driving away. Elizaveta watched as the futures crossed and parted, as the men came ever closer to her hiding place but inevitably veered off in another direction. Suddenly, one of the men’s futures disappeared, followed almost immediately by another’s. Only two men were left and Elizaveta concentrated as hard as she could on them, terrified that the two she couldn’t see were somehow still after her. As she focused on the two who were still visible, she began to see blurry shapes hovering at the edges of the visions. Turning her attention on those shapes, Elizaveta made out the outlines of two other men. She whimpered. The two she had thought had disappeared were merely teaming up with the others.
A second whimper, louder than the first, escaped her, and in her visions, she saw the two clear men’s heads whip around. They heard - would hear? - her! But the shadowy men in the visions didn’t take their focus of the pursuers. Instead, they crept closer to the men at the centers of the visions. Seeing each in triplicate, a total of six tableaux playing out before her, made Elizaveta’s eyes throb and ache and a sharp pain seared through her head, but she didn’t dare lose her focus. The six outcomes were the same, varying only in the direction in which the blood sprayed from the men’s throats. As the last drops of blood were raining down on the loose leaves and twigs of the forest floor, the shadowy figures finally snapped into focus. Every muscle in Elizaveta’s body went lax as she slid into unconsciousness with a relieved sigh, for the faces she saw belonged to Max and Logan.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Hello, my lovelies! Thank you to everybody who has read, reread and reviewed! I have thought of you all often and I remember my promise to finish my stories. They will be finished, and I guarantee it will be this year.
Chapter End Notes:
snpr_wlf, thanks for your email. I think one of the stories you were looking for is "Stray" by hobbitsdoitbetter. I'm flattered that you thought for even a moment that story could be mine! :) I'm not sure about the other one you mentioned...sorry!